What's the next MoF going to be?
Good; I don't think I've seen the word 'placenta' so many times in one place.
Map of the Fortnight: Main thread
- Thread starter Krall
- Start date
What's the next MoF going to be?
Good; I don't think I've seen the word 'placenta' so many times in one place.
See, this is (part of) why I like this site, people will admit something like that without a second thought.
Krall
Banned
See, this is (part of) why I like this site, people will admit something like that without a second thought.
It's because people on this site known fully well that conquering Greece takes precedent over online map contests.
... Wait, what? I don't remember any mentions of the word "placenta"?
Also, I know I haven't announced the winners from the last few MotF rounds, so here's a quick summary.
The honoured winner of MotF 33: The Pilgrimage is:
Big Tex!
Big Tex's "The United States of Ameriwank" timeline is an endless reminder of how ASB can be done well, and his map for this round was certainly no exception!
The honoured winner of MotF 34: Dancing with the Devil is:
B_Munro!
I think B_Munro's won so many times I've exhausted all I can possibly say about the excellence of his scenario construction and allohistorical interestingness. Suffice it to say he's pretty damn good.
The honoured winner of MotF 35: Natio Vetus, Gloria Nova is:
ME!
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Exactly how much ASB is allowed in the Melting Pot one? Seems like it might be an opportunity to have some creativity with geographical PoDs, though it's easy for that sort of thing to get out of hand I suppose.
Would maps of, say, a small allohistorical continent in the south Pacific, be allowed? What about more low-key things, like a significantly enlarged Hawaii?
Would maps of, say, a small allohistorical continent in the south Pacific, be allowed? What about more low-key things, like a significantly enlarged Hawaii?
What about a natural disaster? e.g. people fleeing after a volcanic eruption? How ASB could it go? Yellowstone forcing people to move south? Tsunami forcing people to move inland? Peshawar Lancers type disaster?
What about some off-Earth civilisation made up of people fleeing something that happened here?
Krall
Banned
Well, manmade disasters (e.g. the Dust Bowl) are perfectly okay, but you can't have a natural disaster occur in a period of history where no such natural disaster occurred. Essentially if you're setting your map before 2011 then you can't change any historical natural disasters. If you're setting it after 2011 then the issues become fuzzier, as there are several volcanoes that could erupt any day now, and it's rather hard to predict the location, date and severity of earthquakes, and so forth.
Suffice it to say that any natural disasters you want to have happen must be possible, so no earthquakes well away from tectonic plate boundaries, no asteroids that we should have seen coming randomly appearing and smashing into the Earth and so forth.
That'd be fine. We don't know a whole lot about other planets, so there's a lot of room to fill in the blanks if you want to.
I do not consider aliens to be inherently ASB - you can do them plausibly. If they look just like humans but with weird foreheads then that might be going too far, but generally I'm okay with the possibility of alien life.
You don't believe there is any element of randomness in when volcanoes erupt or which way asteroids end up hurtling? I'm not sure I would agree with that. And it makes even less sense when you're talking about, say, hurricanes or things like that.
Earthquakes do occur away from tectonic plate boundaries, though they're much more rare. But I don't see whats wrong with messing the timing of the eruption of Krakatoa or Vesuvius, for instance.
Aliens are less ASB than geographic PoDs? Wow, we have really different ideas as to what "ASB" signifies, I think.
Krall
Banned
I suppose there's some wiggle room, but this challenge doesn't deal with natural disasters, so I'm less willing to permit potentially ASB disasters as they're not exactly essential to the challenge.
The geography of the Earth is known - it has been meticulously studied, tested and documented over countless generations. We have, in essence, eliminated most of the unknown quantities when it comes to geography. On the other hand there is a lot we do not know about other planets, and there is much we do not know about life and the potential for it.
We know that a vast continent rising spontaneously in the centre of the Atlantic is essentially impossible, but one does not have to stretch the imagination to believe that intelligent life might also exist somewhere other than Earth. We simply don't know, so the potential scenarios are greater in number and wider in scope.
Makes sense, though I would urge you to make allowances if someone does come up with a particularly inspired idea, that requires
True, but it's not like the Earth was predetermined to geographically develop in the way it did. While a sudden vast continent in the Atlantic would be impossible according to our knowledge, a Iceland-sized island in the Atlantic would not be (after all, we're not really sure how Iceland itself formed as it did).
I prefer to think of ASB as simply being scenarios that involve the intrusion of an element of supernatural or extraterrestrial origin of some kind.
But you're probably right to limit geo-PoDs in this case.
I'd consider any geological POD happening in the distant past with humans still evolving to be ASB, but say, the formation of a new volcanic island (they do pop up unpredictably) in historical time to be passable.
Extraterrestrial =\= supernatural. But I plead guilty to ASBness in my contest entry, since a Mars different enough to support life probably would involve changes in the early formation of the solar system, making our current existence extraodinarily improbable.
Bruce
I think that one was "Dance With the Devil." (And thanks! But I didn't have much competition that round).
Bruce
To be fair, that was his usertitle.
Nice! Hopefully I shall be making something for this, having recently made another ethnic (to be fair, religious) map.
This is what I refer to by "your more colourful work".
Krall
Banned
I don't know what you're talking about. I totally did not copy and paste one sentence and then forget to change the name of the challenge in it. That would be ridiculous.
He's probably talking about Agemennon's map, which he said was made by the "K'rall Cartography Guild of Luna," thus momentarily confusing DrTron (and me as well) into thinking it was made by you.